Andre + Annabelle

Barely halfway into The Shoe, the 20-minute debut film from nightlife curator Andre Saraiva and fellow Frenchman Olivier Zahm, a young man meets a pretty girl in a Paris park scribbling in a notebook and they lock eyes and begin kissing as the music shuts off, the only sounds the clicks of teeth on teeth, and seconds later they're at her apartment -- clothes fly off and they go at it, the camera catching all. He wakes the next morning, steals the titular footwear, and we never see her again.

Who was she, that girl with the notebook? She was, of course, the director's girlfriend, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, and she watched the X-rated dirty deed with her mother sitting beside her.

"She liked it!" Ms. Dexter-Jones told The Observer much, much later in the night.

We told her we liked it, too.

"It was tasteful, no?" Ms. Dexter-Jones responded, and curled back her hair onto the big collar on her orange sherbet-colored dress.

"For sure," we said.

We had ended up at Kenmare --yes, yes, but where else? -- and so did the director and his starlet, so we stayed until after closing time and sat down to talk about the stacked levels of awkward that struck her during the screening. An edited version had been scheduled especially for Ann Dexter-Jones, but mom insisted on seeing her daughter's risque scene. And things couldn't have been all peachy for Mr. Saravia -- he had to watch Leo Fitzpatrick, the kid from Kids, get hot and heavy with Ms. Dexter-Jones.

But it seems all is well.

"In the scene," Ms. Dexter-Jones said after a sip of her drink. "I was writing a love letter to Andre."

The film may have been Mr. Saraiva's own mash note to his muse, too, but it was also infatuated with the contraband loafers, made by J.M. Weston. It was a particularly convincing ad for the shoes -- it's perfectly clear why Mr. Fitzpatrick steals them, has them stolen from him in kind and, when he finds the thieves, beats them to a bloody pulp to get them back. The guy cares about loafers!

The crowd skipped the first showing, the edited version, in favor of vodka drinks on the third-floor stone balcony, and then filed into the screening room for the film. Paris, pretty people, sex, loafers, cafes, etc. And yes, as Annabelle would reiterate later, her mother had no problem whatsoever witnessing the spectacle.

"I was very comfortable!" the elder Ms. Dexter-Jones told The Observer. "She was acting. It's not like I'm a peeping Tom! I had to appreciate --"

"Can I get one photo for Women's Wear Daily?" said a woman with a Polaroid camera. Apparently the rag has gone retro with its fashion slideshows.

She snapped it and the hazy undeveloped image puttered out of the clunky machine.

"But yes," Ms. Dexter-Jones continued. "I think she's a great actress."

The party migrated to Le Bain, where it's finally warm enough for the hot tub to be open, but The Observer chased the party downtown and split for to the pop-up Madame Wong's (which got the full Thursday Styles treatment in today's Times). Before seeing The Shoe we had run into Simonez Wolf, impresario behind the traveling hush-hush infrequent club, and he told us it was on tonight. But when we arrived at Jobee, the nondescript place the party occupies, there was only Nico, a waiter, and he said it had been quiet.

"Just went to wong's at jobee, is it somewhere else?" The Observer texted Mr. Wolf. "Nico was cleaning up."

"idk," Mr. Wolf responded.

Oh well. Luckily enough Kenmare had on display a wobbly Josh Brolin who rolled through with his bros, Paul Sevigny hauling his DJ rig brought over from Le Bain, and eventually Mr. Saraiva and Ms. Dexter-Jones. It got late and after discussing The Shoe Ms. Dexter-Jones changed the subject. She wanted a book recommendation.

"Have you read The Day of the Locust?" we asked.

She hadn't. But later we realized that, given the film we had watched her in earlier that night, a much more appropriate choice would have been the book stuffed in our jacket pocket: Dylan Thomas' Adventures in the Skin Trade.

Then the couple left, driven away by one of the bouncers as dawn started to hit the rooftops, and as we walked away we realized we had two lighters in our pocket. If you want yours back, Annabelle, let us know.

By the time the designer and his crew had migrated to to Le Bain, however, the colors had drained -- the crowd, sandwiched together, wore mostly black and the bar was as dark-lit as it could be. As expected, Misshapes played New Wave standards. Leigh Lezark was wearing a Jeremy Scott skeleton dress. The designer danced behind the DJ booth. This would go on until 4:00 am.

But why was John Legend there? He seemed a tad out of place among the scrum of people dressed like 90s club kids. He was wearing a simple tan leather jacket and sipping a cocktail. He seemed apprehensive of the whole scene. It's no surprise that he had never been to Le Bain before.

"This is the first time -- I hadn't even heard of it before tonight," Legend said to The Observer. "It's cool. A lot of mohawks!"

We did a quick three-sixty. If the definition of "mohawk" was interpreted liberally than, yes, there were a lot of "mohawks." He also could have been referring to the designer's side-cropped coif, a thick block of curls resting on his skull.

John Legend told The Observer he missed much of the spree of runway shows and parties due to a scheduling conflict.

"I live in New York, but I'm always gone during Fashion Week because of the Grammys," Legend sighed.

Later, we remembered that Legend picked up three statues at the ceremony last Sunday.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

There was Derek Blasberg, fashion writer, screaming, “Julia! Julia!” stretching out the first syllable as if it might catch the attention of Julia Restoin Roitfeld, the daughter of Carine Roitfeld, until lately editor of French Vogue. Graffiti art was the theme; it was RETNA’s after-party, and the host was Ms. Restoin Roitfeld’s brother Vladimir. There was New Wave, overdrinking and indoor smoking. It could have been Indochine in 1985, but it was Indochine last Thursday night.

The screams went on until Ms. Restoin Roitfeld relented, and The Observer joined her in a booth, along with Mr. Blasberg, Byrdie Bell and Genevieve Jones. (On the same table, Ms. Restoin Roitfeld’s mother, Carine, would later be dancing, drink in hand.) All we had to offer Ms. Restoin Roitfeld was a cigarette, but she declined, so we decamped to the booth over, where Mary-Kate Olsen was holding court.

Same old faces in this town, different booths—there she was again at Zac Posen’s Purple magazine party Friday at the Standard, cozying up in a Boom Boom Room booth with her sister, Ashley, and Jared Leto, in that purple, full-hoodie turban frock of his. More cigarettes, too: Olivier Zahm chaining them as if he couldn’t see through his permanent sunglasses that he’s not in France; Paz de la Huerta mumbling, cooing and puffing in The Observer’s face. And the same old songs, Alexander Wang bopping his head to “All of the Lights” by Kanye West, who was there, too—we see the guy everywhere—roped off in a corner of Le Bain behind a wall of bodyguards.

So we went to Chinatown. Behind any door, no matter how nondescript, there could be a party. People dancing, good-looking people, drinking vodka. It might even be smoldering. The Bungalow 8 doorman Armin Amiri just opened a joint like this, in the Shanghai style, called Mister H. He’ll try to keep you out if you’re not beautiful, but that can only last a few months. The Observer went in and saw a red neon sign bleeding into a dug-out back room: “This is not a brothel there are no prostitutes at this address.” Thanks anyway.

It put us in the mind of naked ladies. So we went to the Westway, the “faux strip club” from Matt Kliegman and Carlos Quirarte, who throw the Jane Hotel parties. People wait a long time for places like this to open, then soon enough forget about them. That night the designer Rag & Bone booked the glitter-happy space, not yet open to the public, and brought in pretty kids content to grip the stipper poles themselves for lack of actual exotic dancers. We asked the comedian Aziz Ansari when actual skin would be shown. “Twelve thirty!” he responded. He was giddy. “We’re almost there.” Soon enough, “Paradise City” came on, and the strippers came out. In minutes, they were topless, and dollar bills started sliding into G-strings. If they keep this up, they’ll have to drop the “faux.”

At the end of the night, The Observer saw daylight peeking through the sky, and the light was about the same when we woke up the next evening. It was time to drag ourselves back to the Standard, where the pretensions now include an ice rink. Alpine après-ski cocktails are another way to drink vodka, in this case with apple cider. Johnny Weir was there prancing and spinning around the rink, the Lady Gaga of figure skaters, you might say. Judging by his outfit, if they remade black Black Swan as science fiction, they could cast him beside David Bowie.

Charlotte Ronson’s party was good for a few flutes of Champagne. The Observer ran into Andre Saraiva. He said his Paris club Le Baron will open a Mulberry Street branch in March, so that’ll be another place to go.

It got too late, much too late. At the United Bamboo party at the Jane Hotel around 5, everyone was dancing on the tables, and members of LCD Soundsystem, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Grizzly Bear were all singing along.

Sunday night was unholy. The Observer recalls going to Kenmare for the Vs. magazine party, Soho Grand for Timo Weiland’s after-party, Le Bain for the Y-3 party—but none of the details. At some point, we were inside a limousine. And then, apparently, back at Kenmare. 

To think it was only last Wednesday, at Cipriani for the amfAR Gala, that Anna Wintour tipped The Observer off about the runway shows she was most looking forward to.

We didn’t make it to any of them.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Gawker posted about the profile — notable in and of itself, seeing as that site's tao of Tao saw them first promising to never mention him again, then pardoning him, then posting a long narrative he wrote about getting arrested at Think Coffee. They said The Stranger had the "dumb audacity" to give the "stunt novelist" such an overblown cover.

Perhaps, The Stranger suggests, they didn't completely understand the joke at hand? Tao Lin forwarded The Observer an email he got from Christopher Frizzelle, editor of the Seattle alt weekly, in which he suggests that Gawker totally missed the point.

"I think they really think that we think you are the greatest of american novelists," Frizzelle wrote to Lin. "Remember when Gawker was usually funny and ahead of the jokes? So slow on the uptake now."

There's another profile of Tao Lin out today, this one in BlackBook. It proceeds in a manner somewhat similar to that of his profile in The Observer. The BlackBook profile, however, has more drug use.

Early in the piece, Rozalia Jovanovic follows Tao from Union Square, to a rooftop, to a couple of swank parties — "at times both of us under the influence of a controlled substance." At BEast, for Ryan McGinley's Main Man party, the two of them split an Adderall — the reporter encourages the usage after Tao says the drug makes him talk more — and, feeling indebted, Jovanovic offers a Valium in return. He also talks about his experiences with other drugs, and how he uses them to help write his form-heavy novels. 

My ex-girlfriend had a friend who broke a hip and got a lot of methadone. I probably took that like ten times and I liked it a lot. Surprisingly, it lasted like 24 hours. I would go to sleep and wake up and still feel it. And then for a while I liked things like Klonopin, Xanax, and Valium. I’ve taken acid a few times. I don’t get any hallucinations. Actually, it just feels like Adderall. But it’s stronger and lasts longer. 

Before they leave, Tao spots Ryan McGinley, and instead of wearing the jean jacket we saw him in multiple times during Fashion Week, McGinley is wearing a red hat. "Is that red hat his signature hat?" Tao Lin asks. 

From there they go to Le Bain for the 'SUP magazine party. Tao noticies that 'SUP magazine only has 2,100 followers on Twitter. Once there, they venture over to the hot tub. There's a topless girl in the hot tub. On the ledge of the hot tub, Tao Lin talks about how he didn't have many friends in school.